In reply to @ronnypfannschmidt:matrix.org
I truly wonder why,, it seems like that would be the easiest way for a individual or a small org to handle things

Most of the cases where I worked at orgs that use nix, (small to medium sized) we would maintain binary cache in s3 compatible object store. It's low cost, eliminates the problem of garbage collection or maintaining a specific machine, and is very simple to make the cache widely available for deployed machines, ci, etc Once I started doing it this way, I never looked back.

I did have a former employer that tried to manage a running machine as a nix binary cache. It didn't go very well, although it's an approach that they used for a number of years. It took a lot of extra work to maintain the machine that served that purpose.

In reply to @qyliss:fairydust.space
correct

In reply to @quapka4:matrix.org
Then a follow up question. I am thinking of having a slow virtual machine with the binary cache that fetches the binaries from much beefier - however, I don't have root there. Can I use the nix-user-chroot or something similar to still build as if I was root and had the access to /nix/store?

Is there a easy Way to have per user profiles on a server with custom gc

I'm trying to simulate sensible gc for a ssh based cache by creating per flake output profiles that gc via older than similar to deployed profiles